Red Harvest

The Op reads The Herald the next day. Donald died at 10:40 pm of four gunshot wounds on Hurricane Street. According to witnesses, a man and woman were spotted standing over the dead man. The Op visits the Willsson house again. From outside, he sees Max “Whisper” Thaler approach the doorway. Changing his mind, the Op decides to visit Elihu Willsson instead. Elihu is known as “the czar of Poisonville” (11). 

When the Op arrives, Elihu is perched up in bed. The Op announces that Donald hired him intending to clean up the corrupt town. The Op believes that Mrs. Willsson may have been involved in her husband’s murder. Elihu expresses his intense dislike of his son’s young French wife. When the Op suggests that Elihu had been using Donald to expose the corrupt leaders of the town, Elihu protests his innocence. He reiterates his belief that his son was killed by his wife. 

Next, the Op visits the offices of The Herald. He speaks to Lewis, Donald’s secretary, and she reveals that Donald and Elihu recently argued about the ownership of The Herald. The Op looks through Donald’s desk, finding the stub of a check written out for $5,000. There is no name on the check. Lewis—whose father is Elihu’s secretary—recalls Donald speaking to a woman on the telephone before he took the check and left the office. She insists that the Willsson family were good at keeping their secrets to themselves.

The Op visits the First National Bank and speaks to Robert Albury. The assistant cashier reveals that the $5,000 check was cashed earlier in the day by a woman named Dinah Brand. Albury agrees to answer more of the Op’s questions over dinner. 

Next, the Op visits City Hall to speak to Noonan, the chief of police. According to Noonan, Dinah Brand is romantically involved with Whisper. Her only interest is money, Noonan says, as she is “a big-league gold-digger.” The Op mentions that he saw Whisper at the Willsson house, so Noonan suggests that they visit Mrs. Willsson together. 

The chief of police questions Mrs. Willsson, who eventually relents. She confesses that she saw her husband on the night of his death. She claims that an unnamed person telephoned the house to tell her that her husband was taking a $5,000 check to Dinah Brand. Mrs. Willsson claims that she drove to Dinah’s house, where she saw her husband walk into the street. Then, he was shot. Mrs. Willsson rushed to her husband’s prone body, where Whisper approached her and suggested that she leave. Noonan wonders who called Mrs. Willsson with the information. He urges her to point the finger at Whisper, whom he wants to accuse of murdering Donald. She tells Noonan that “it was he” (25), meaning Whisper. 

Later, the Op returns to his hotel. Albury meets him in the lobby. Over dinner, he claims to have known Dinah Brand briefly, alluding to a romantic partnership between them. Albury confirms the accusation that Dinah is only interested in money. Their romance ended when he no longer had any money left to offer her. Had he stayed with Dinah, Albury admits, he may have been tempted to embezzle money from the bank, but he did not. After leaving Albury, Dinah took in a wealthy man named Dan Rolff, who is suffering from tuberculosis though she “is not in love with him" (27). Dinah lives at 1232 Hurricane Street, which the Op visits next.

The Op knocks on Dinah’s door. Dan Rolff answers and lets the Op inside. The Op notes that Rolff seems both educated and sickly. Inside, the Op quizzes Dinah about the check, but she seems reluctant to give him any direct answers. Rolff becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Under questioning, she admits that Donald wanted to expose the corruption in the town. He was “hunting for scandal” (36), and he was willing to offer Dinah a lot of money in exchange for evidence of this corruption. He could never have published any of the evidence, however, as it would have implicated his father. 

The Op tells Dinah that Noonan is trying to blame her (and Whisper) for Donald’s murder. He warns her to be careful. Dinah does not believe that Whisper could have killed Donald, but she alludes to someone who might have done so, though she refuses to name names.

At 2:30 am, the Op returns to his hotel. The clerk passes along an “urgent” message from Elihu, who is eager to speak to the Op as soon as possible. When the Op arrives at Elihu’s house, the old man is sitting up in bed. He has a gun in his hand. The floor is covered in blood; in the middle is a dead body. According to Elihu, the corrupt men who run Poisonville sent the dead man to kill him. He believes that they wanted revenge for Donald’s attempts to expose their corruption. 

Elihu offers to hire the Op to rid the town of corruption. The Op cites his fee: $10,000 and a “free hand” to handle the matter as he pleases. Reluctantly, Elihu accepts the deal. Noonan arrives a short time later. He examines the dead man, whom he identifies as Yakima Shorty. The Op and Noonan set out to find and arrest Whisper. A police lieutenant named McGraw says that he knows where Whisper is hiding.

Whisper operates out of an apartment in a three-story building. The bottom floor is taken up by a cigar store, which is operated as a front for the illegal gambling business which takes place upstairs. Noonan orders his police officers to surround the building. He asks the Op to go inside, as he may be able to convince Whisper to surrender peacefully. The Op suspects that Noonan is deliberately sending him into a dangerous situation. Inside, the Op speaks to Whisper. Before they can talk, the police fire their guns into the house. The Op ducks for cover and shoots back, hitting a police officer. 

Once they are safe, the Op and Whisper talk. The Op reveals that Noonan wants to frame Whisper for Donald’s murder. On the night of the murder, Whisper says, an unnamed man called him. The anonymous caller revealed that Donald was en route to Dinah with a large check. Whisper admits that he was present at the scene of the crime but insists that he did not kill Donald. 

The Op convinces Whisper to sneak out of the building, then lay low until noon the next day. He suggests that Noonan’s attempts to frame Whisper for the murder will not hold up to scrutiny. They bribe one of Noonan’s men to let them slip out the back.

Rather than sleep in the Hotel Crawford, the Op follows a bright neon sign into the hotel next door. He rents a room for the night and, the following day, he heads back to First National Bank to cash the sizeable check from Elihu. 

Inside, he speaks to Albury. He directly asks Albury why he killed Donald. Albury denies any involvement. The Op speaks to the head cashier, Mr. Dritton, and asks to speak to Albury alone in a private room. Inside the room, the Op lays into Albury. He reveals what he knows: Albury was in love with Dinah and feared that she was having an affair with Donald. Since she loved only money, Albury worried that he was not rich enough to satisfy her. Albury was one of the only people who knew that Donald had a check for $5,000. Albury called both Mrs. Willsson and Whisper. The .32 caliber gun that shot Donald is exactly like the guns used by the bank’s security guards. Albury confesses to the murder, though he insists that he “didn’t mean to kill him” (59). He says the gun is still in one of the tellers’ cages. 

The Op drags Albury to the police department, then leaves to reveal what has happened to Elihu. When he tells Elihu everything, however, the old man tries to go back on their deal. Since Donald’s murderer has been found, he has no interest in the Op continuing his investigation into corruption in the town. The Op insists that he is going to take the $10,000 and complete the job. He’s going to clean up Personville and kick out all the criminals. Now, he is going to “have [his] fun” (63).